


Until the night is done

by Beleriandings



Category: Akatsuki no Yona | Yona of the Dawn
Genre: Gen, feat. actual literal dragon gods, hiryuu loves the original dragon warriors and they love him, this got weirdly existential i hope you like it
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-03-03
Updated: 2018-03-03
Packaged: 2019-03-26 14:36:12
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,180
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13859784
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Beleriandings/pseuds/Beleriandings
Summary: After being hurt in battle, Hiryuu dreams of the gods.





	Until the night is done

How fragile these humans are; Hiryuu could vaguely remember the gods saying that, back when he had been one of them. His memories of that time out of time were vague, now – filtered through human senses not made to capture the all-encompassing awareness of a god, so they were weak and flickering things that made his head spin even to try to recall. But he did remember that; Ouryuu, it had been, a winding current of bright gold in their shared pool of consciousness, as they had watched the human world play out its history below. How fragile. How little it takes to break them.

Hiryuu, if he remembered correctly, had disagreed in that instance. 

Still though, that had been then, and this was the now. And in this particular now, one moment, one mistake, really had been all it took.

He had been riding in the final charge of the battle – the wind lifting his hair and drawing it out behind him with the speed, his sword drawn and his heart beating so loud he could hear it in his ears, in counterpoint to the beating of hooves against the ground and the wind rattling the war standards of the king’s army. The four dragon warriors – his dear friends – were at his side as they always were, and as they rode beside him his heart swelled with love yet again, acute and almost overwhelming.

He didn’t remember much of the heavens, but he remembered he had never been able to feel like this, before he was human.

They had already taken the outlying villages of land easily and peacefully when the common people had risen up and joined Hiryuu’s side, in defiance of their cruel lord who worked them too hard with too little food and hoarded the taxes they couldn’t pay while the people starved. It hadn’t been too hard; the people had fought for him as soon as Hiryuu had shown them that he could treat them better.

Some had been suspicious of course; it made Hiryuu’s heart heavy with the knowledge of the life they had probably lived, that their instincts were to fight or to run, to live for themselves and distrust any leader unless they could prove that they would never turn cruel and casually despotic.

Hiryuu had shown them that. Or rather, his people had; the soldiers in his army who had gone among them bringing food, medicine, aid. But most importantly, they had brought stories; they had lived in lands like this, once. There had been similar battles, playing out the same all over the country; cruel lords who had worked only for their own gain, and left those they presided over to suffer. Hiryuu had come and led those people, had united them to overthrow the ones who had ground them down, and they had joined him, and they would speak of it to anyone who would listen.

Stories. The power of humans to create stories, nurse them and watch them grow and pass them out into the world to become something real… well, Hiryuu had found that that was something that should never be underestimated.

And so the people had joined his side, in trickles at first, and then in droves.

It should have been easy to bring peace, after that.

And it almost had been; they had charged in to take the citadel where the lord had barricaded himself. They had fought through the defenses, and were riding in up the steep stone ramp to the walls.

No one had noticed the single archer that had not yet surrendered, the lord himself with his flowing cloak of blue and purple, silhouetted against the bloody sunset. Had not seen that he was drawing a longbow, aiming down from the walls.

The arrow flew almost true; it had been meant for Hiryuu - in a final act of vengeance - but had instead hit his horse, striking in the neck. The poor creature had let out a high-pitched sound of terror and shied, tossing Hiryuu violently to one side, and before he knew what had happened, he was falling sideways. Though he tried to brace himself, to fall well, there was no ground to fall on, suddenly; a moment later he was scrabbling for purchase on the edge of the stone ramp, and then he was falling, tumbling to the rubble and debris of the attack strewn through the grass at the bottom. As he fell, he struck his head against something hard, and stars were bursting before his eyes, and for an instant the world became a swirling tangle of deafening sound, before all went dark.

He drifted for a long time, shapes moving strangely around him. His body felt numb, disconnected from his mind, yet still somewhere close by perhaps. There were things, fleeting shadows on the edge of his vision as he felt himself falling, yet not falling…falling upwards? No, not quite that; it felt more he were moving in a direction that he, with his human mind, could not now comprehend or find words for.

And then he stopped falling, and there they were, all around him.

They were formless at first, and even in this state, with his mind decoupled from his body, the experience of them hurt his consciousness, pushing it to its limit to try to fit his mind around theirs in the way that he once had.

A moment later he felt them rustle and shift in what might be annoyance, then take a clearer form; they were four distinct shapes now. Green, blue, white, yellow. It eased the pressure on his mind some to see them that way, and they seemed to sense it too, so they carried on changing until there were four dragons of the form that they used when they manifested themselves to humans.

Hiryuu looked all around him, smiling at them. He himself, in this vision – this dream, whatever it was – was still in his human form, he noted, dressed in a loose, pale robe, his hair floating free around him as he floated there in the silence.

A moment later, he felt the four dragons nudge at him with their snouts, probing in concern.

“You’re hurt” said Ouryuu, as Hakuryuu twined in a circle around him, curling protectively.

He followed their thoughts back to the world, back to the present. Even as he did, he saw a vision of that world, his mind for a moment latching back on to his physical body. He saw himself lying in a bed with a clean swathe of bandages around his head, unconscious or sleeping; he was very still and his hair spread out across the covers, bright crimson against the pale cloth.

It was night, and beside him there was a brazier burning. He immediately saw movement; a flash of green. Shuten was there, and he was pacing restlessly, back and forth across the room at the foot of the bed like a caged animal, staring at the floor, only stealing a glance up at the bed every minute or so before looking back down, the front of his hair falling over his eyes and his hands in fists at his sides.

Kneeling by the side of the bed was Guen, and he was moving the brazier carefully closer to Hiryuu’s side, to keep him warm. As he watched, the orange glow lit Guen’s face, which was lined with a frown of worry.The shadows were cast in sharp relief, making him look older than he was, weighed down with troubles.

When Guen had finished adjusting the brazier, he turned to the foot of the king’s bed, where Zeno had fallen asleep, with his head down on the covers, pillowed by his arms. Hiryuu saw Guen smile sadly, taking a spare blanket and tucking it carefully around Zeno, before resuming his silent vigil.

And he wasn’t the only one. By the window, where the moonlight streamed in through a crack in the shades, was Abi; the silver light illuminated a thin strip of his face, catching in the bright gold of one of his dragon’s eyes. Abi was reading; or so it appeared at first. But Abi’s eyes weren’t moving, Hiryuu could see from this spirit vantage point; instead Abi was looking through the paper, staring fixedly at the bed, and at Hiryuu in it. Keeping a constant, unblinking watch on the beating of his heart, the breath going in and out of his lungs.

As though if he looked away for even a moment then the king might slip away, beyond any of their protection.

Hiryuu couldn’t help but smile, sadly. He knew he couldn’t go to them in this vision, yet he felt his heart fill with love for them, all over again.

And a moment later, he was back in the dream-space, with the four dragon gods.

“You’re hurt” said Ouryuu, again. “They failed you!”

“Aren’t you ready to come back to us?” asked Seiryuu, head tilting as they came close to him, looking him up and down with a slightly accusatory expression. “Aren’t you tired of this human life yet?”

“You don’t have to hurt anymore, like they do!” said Ryokuryuu. “You can return to us. Be free of their fragility, their constraints…”

“You can be strong again.”

But Hiryuu was shaking his head. “Not yet.”

“You think you must live out your human life, now that you have begun it” said Seiryuu, with a resigned sigh. “Well, you always were persistent. But you know that you cannot, even if you want to, live - ”

“I can” interrupted Hiryuu. “I can, and I will.”

“Perhaps you can, for a time” said Hakuryuu, evenly. “But Hiryuu, is it worth it? We tried to give you strong ones, companions to protect you. It didn’t work!”

Hiryuu frowned at that. “What?”

“They should have protected you!” said Ouryuu. “They let you get hurt…the one I gave my power to doesn’t even use it! I don’t think he even knows how…”

“I wouldn’t have Zeno do that for me.” Hiryuu smiled again, sadly this time, thinking back to the vision he had seen. “But they are protecting me” he said. “They may not be able to keep me from getting hurt every time. They…” he felt pain at this thought, “they may not even be able to keep me from dying. In fact, they will not. But they will never stop protecting me…” he looked back to the dragon gods surrounding him, wondering what he could do, what he could say to ease their worry. “As long as I live, and after it too. My destiny is in their hands, now and forever.”

And as he said those words, the four dragons bowed their majestic heads, though in acknowledgement or sorrow he could not tell. For as they did, he felt the vision fade, swimming out of focus and back into swirling light for a moment, before going dark.

And then, suddenly, there was light once again. And sounds too; familiar voices, tense, clipped, but hopeful.

“Is he waking? Seiryuu, did you see - ”

“Yes! Yes, I saw him move, now shut up Ryokuryuu; your loud voice will hurt his ears.”

“Wh-what’s going on? Is the king all right?”

“Shh, Ouryuu. Yes, he seems to be doing well… the healer changed his bandages two hours ago and said so…”

“Look, I saw his face move!”

“Move over Hakuryuu, let me see!”

Hiryuu opened his eyes to see them all craning nervously above him, backed by the clean, pale light of early morning filtering in through the windows, which had been thrown open to let in the air. Guen was holding his hand in both of his, clasped tight but with meticulous care so as not to hurt Hiryuu with his claws.

His whole body ached, feeling battered and bruised. His head hurt worst of all, a blinding, nauseous pain radiating from under the bandages, and his thoughts felt thick and slow as swimming through honey.

Yet Hiryuu looked up at them, and smiled, his heart filled with joy and love, and sadness for what he knew now was to come. Both in the immediate future and in the far distant one, that even the gods couldn’t yet clearly see.

“My king!” exclaimed Guen, joy in his voice and tears in his eyes. “You’re alive!”

“We’re…we’re sorry we couldn’t protect you!” sniffed Zeno, his eyes teary too, but he was smiling through it.

“We…we failed” said Guen, as Abi and Shuten exchanged looks and nodded, both silent and grave for once, tense with both relief and worry.

“We’re sorry!”

“We’ll do better!”

“We’ll protect you next time!”

“Next time…” Hiryuu blinked in the sunlight, falling warm on his face; his head still felt a little fuzzy. He thought of what he had seen, of the four of them staying, waiting in silence through the dark and lonely night for him to wake. “Yes…” he said, so quietly he was not sure they could even hear, “yes, I know you will.”


End file.
